Creating too much weak groups
There is a proverb which says: "five may live, but the sixth dies". It means that five groups of a single colour on a board may live (only may) but six groups are too much, and one of them will die. I realised how true it is a few days ago.
On Friday I was playing a very interesting game with Mr.MK, without any clock or handicap on real-life. My rival had been pincered on the upper right corner in the first 10 moves and, instead of invading the corner he decided to escape. I chased his group for over 70 moves… it was a huge group on the upper right side of the game which would give me the victory after its death…
A few moves later I realised my own situation: I found myself with 4 weak groups chasing a huge one (with only one group, yes, but it was a huge one). So, I had 4 weak groups on a single third of the board, plus the other ones on the board. I guess you can imagine how strong they were and how many liberties they had. Unluckily for me, my opponent, after a few minutes trying to save his group, realised that I had too many weak groups and attacked them, tearing them appart till they were reduced to minimum space and died.
So, in the end, he got a third of the board in this fight. His group was alive, he had captured over 20 stones (two of my groups) and had a huge influence towards the center… the game was over for me.
This game wasn’t played on the internet and I didn’t record it on my palm neither, though I don’t know if I was lucky then… I hope to forget this game soon, though not the lesson I learned.
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